MALTA
Times of Malta
Wednesday, February 19, 2014, 00:01 by Martin Scicluna
The United Nations Committee on Rights of the Child has recently delivered a swingeing report on the systemic and long-standing sexual abuse of children by the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, the committee undermined the impact of this important report by straying beyond its terms of reference to areas like women’s rights, abortion and contraception, allowing those in the Church so minded to cast doubt on the credibility of the report.
This is a pity because the main thrust of the committee’s 16-page report contains a damning indictment of the Vatican’s “systematic” adoption of policies allowing priests to abuse children sexually. The report urges the Holy See to “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected of having abused minors and to report them to the civil authorities.
It also states that it should hand over its records on abuse of tens of thousands of children so that the culprits, as well as “those who concealed their crimes”, are held accountable.
The committee “is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators”.
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